


disappointments of the apocalypse

by shakespearesho



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Loss, Muteness, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23242534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakespearesho/pseuds/shakespearesho
Summary: He didn’t know. Didn’t know he’d trapped himself into his own solitary confinement. He was his own jailer and now that he is free from it, he does not know himself without his prison.The helmet lies in front of him, like a lonely skull. Tony glares as it bores back at him, as if waiting for an answer that he cannot give.-after the snap, tony has the startling realisation that he cannot be the man he once was. iron man, that is. things go a little differently this time.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) & Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Nebula, Tony Stark/Tiberius Stone
Comments: 5
Kudos: 26





	1. home safe and sound

**Author's Note:**

> hi all!
> 
> this is my first fic in the marvel fandom (even though i've been in it for ages lmao) and i've always wanted to try my hand at writing one. i've had lots of ideas for tony, but this is probably the one i've wanted to do most.
> 
> after i saw endgame, i always wanted to know what tony's journey would look like if things went a little differently. so here goes.
> 
> title comes from Disappointments of the Apocalypse by Mary Karr

The universe crumbles. That’s the whole of it. 

In the moments after, he looks up, around at the landscape around him. It’s foreign, but the trace of death is familiar to him. It reminds him of the vision. As it should. When he’d set his eyes in the direction of the sceptre and instead saw a sea of destruction staring back at him. 

There’s no plan for what comes next.

The robotic woman stands alone, above him on the horizon of his vision. The red and orange rocks and junk littered around the place create an arena of sorts. A battle was lost here, in more ways than one. The dust billows around them, and fuck it, if he can’t tell what’s dust and what’s all that’s left of the decimated. It’s in his lungs, suffocating him. It’s the dirt beneath his feet and the sand on his palms and it’s Afghanistan all over again. Alone in the desert with no sign of rescue. Death avoided in one instance only to be met with it at another.

Tony looks up at the woman, stood high up on a pyramid of scrap metal. A woman like him, who has mourned more than once for the wrong reasons. 

He pulls himself up off the ground, where his hand had pressed on Peter’s chest, pressed all the way through till it hit the soil under him. He holds it out to her, a last resort. A final plea for assistance. Her gaze lingers on him for a long while, her expression unmoving, but eyes looking upon him with pity. The pity of seeing a father who has lost his son.

She turns towards the ship. She knows he can make it up himself. Hell, he knows that he can make it up himself. He’s been asking for help he doesn’t really need for a long time. He wonders if it’s criminal to not need help, but to want it. 

It’s then he makes the decision. It’s not really a choice. It’s just all that’s left.

Hauling himself off of the alien planet, millions of miles from Earth, Tony Stark decides that Iron Man cannot exist anymore.

Not in a universe like this one.

+

The ship is barren and cold when he steps on it. 

Despite the warm palette of the planet below, space is cold. Too far from the sun to steal any warmth from the sky, and the ship is not much better. By the time they get it up and running, he’s worked himself into a sweat. The leftover nanobytes that make up the armour gather pools of sweat beneath the surface, and he’s left frozen and shaking after the adrenaline wears off.

Nebula, the woman’s name, doesn’t speak much, barely at all. She’s quiet, her joints clinking as she moves her hand through endless parts in an attempt to fine one that will fix the ship. After fixing the flight stabiliser, the ship can move, and it groans as they try to heave it from the ground by the controls. The air is not as still as it was when they got on, and it whistles like the wind as he tries hard to navigate while Nebula tries the air lock. 

Nebula waits in the main corridor for him to excuse himself from the pilot deck. He can feel her dark eyes watching him like prey, even though he knows that she’ll do no harm. There is no harm to be done anymore. That is the price they have paid.

The headlights of the ship reach out into the depth of space, and with nothing in their path, Tony realises that they are well and truly alone.

After the decimation, a numbness had settled into him. Shielding his brain from thinking about the extent of what really happened. Now that he’s stopped moving, and is now stuck staring into the abyss, his brain begins to catch up.

Anxiety is an old acquaintance, welcoming him back into its deceitful arms. He thinks about Rhodey and Pepper. He thinks about the team. He tries to reason with himself and pull himself out of the depths of thinking that everything, everyone he loves is gone too. 

He knows nothing for sure. There is no reason to think of it when he knows nothing for sure. 

As much as he tries to pull himself out of the embrace, Tony is weak. His strength has left him and there is nothing more to do but think. He does a lot of that anyway.

Tony stares into space, literally. The stars twinkle back at him while his brain attempts to reason with the idea of the apocalypse.

+

When he wakes, alone in the pilot’s seat, his first realisation is that he is still trapped in the suit. 

It immediately becomes apparent that he needs to get it off.

Although he woke in a calm, sane manner, that was then and this is now and he wants the fucking suit off. 

He’s manic. Pulling and prying off the detached metal still attached to his under-suit, even though he knows that they’re not going to come off. They’re not meant to come off. He designed them that way. Nevertheless, his arms grow weary, but he grows increasingly agitated to get it off. It’s like a prison he built himself into. At first, he’d found comfort in the cool titanium that surrounded him, but it’s always been a cage, he realises. He’d left his cave in the Afghan mountains and built himself into a trap of his own.

Tony’s breathing is speeding up. He’s using up all the oxygen. Soon, there’ll be none left on the ship and he’ll die a slow death and he’ll never make it back to Earth to see those who survived. 

_It doesn’t matter_ he tells himself, _like a mantra as long as I never have to get back in that cell of a suit again._

He wails, for trapping himself in something he once took comfort in. When the final piece falls off of him, he flings it across the cabin, hearing it reverberate against the wall somewhere deep behind the clutter of the ship.

He didn’t know. Didn’t know he’d trapped himself into his own solitary confinement. He was his own jailer and now that he is free from it, he does not know himself without his prison.

The helmet lies in front of him, like a lonely skull. Tony glares as it bores back at him, as if waiting for an answer that he cannot give.

If anyone asks questions when he gets back, if he gets back, the battle left the suit mangled and unfixable, there being almost nothing left of it by the time Thanos was done with him. 

If there is an extra indent in the helmet from where he hurls it at his reflection in the window, no one will notice.

+

Once again, Tony discovers that space is an icy tundra with no source of heat.

After his little breakdown, he had stripped himself of his jacket and pants. They weighed him down like a brick on his head. It was strange to feel such a way, unembarrassed, vulnerable and half-naked at the same time. No real reason to be embarrassed though, he’s been in far more drastic states of disarray with a much larger audience than this before. On quite a few occasions, actually.

He trawls the rooms aboard the Benatar, searching aimlessly for some form of cloth. Anything that will shield him from the sharp temperatures that the ship undergoes when in dark patches. Nebula eyes him carefully, but it’s more of a watchful eye than a scrutinising one. He’s not quite sure why. If she has any qualms about him doing so, she doesn’t voice them.

He finds a button up sweater that he thankfully throws on. It’s big on him. Well, everything is, now days. He doesn’t eat like he used to and sleeps less than he needs to. It’s hard to say no when no one’s around to tell you so.

Despite the temptation, he doesn’t camp out in their rooms. It feels wrong, in a way. They’re strangers to him and he cannot impose. He knows it’s ridiculous, as if they’re coming back. He briefly wonders if this will be his sort of reaction to everything when he gets back, if he gets back. Leave everything untouched lest they all come back to life in a miracle of nature.

Tony thinks of the Parker’s apartment in Queens, and ponders if it’s sitting idle, or if there’s a woman inside waiting for her nephew that will never come back.

+

The fuel supply is the next to go. 

Nebula doesn’t ask him outright to help her, but god knows there’s nothing else to do while floating aimless through he universe, so he may as well. Her eyes seem to brighten slightly as he gets his hands on the wrench. 

Tony pulls and prods at the alien engine of the ship he doesn’t understand, and vows to himself to master it before they make it home, if they make it home. Nebula slightly guides his hands in the right directions at times where he begins to feel in over his head, and they begin to work.

At first, there was complete silence between the two was they fixed, but they find a rhythm. Somehow. 

Tony nudges Nebula’s arm out of the way, and she tilts his head from where he stands in front of the main control panel. It grows into a comfortable silence, then an uncomfortable conversation. 

Sparks skid across the walkway as he welds the fuel pipes together, and find himself pulling up his goggles and grinning at Nebula when the machine proceeds to make a vulgar noise. They repair and eventually discuss. 

Although they float adrift, she still offers him the remainder of the food rations and he still teaches her to play paper football. They are now in the universe’s hands. The tiny piece of serenity they found themselves upon now hovering through space on its own course. 

It’s the most calming acceptance of death he’s had. He doesn’t even record a message before he lies down to look at the supernovas one last time before closing his eyes.

+

Let it be known that Tony Stark has been wrong about every time he thought he was going to die.

He really wanted to be right. Just this once.

+

The woman, who Tony now knows as Carol, carries the ship back to Earth in a strange, pack-horse-like manner. Her golden haze illuminates the universe to its full potential, compared to the half-assed headlights of the Benatar.

When she pulls them down to Earth and carefully drops them on the mess of a lawn of the compound, he sees tiny people rush towards the entrance to the ship. He can pick them one by one by their looks. Especially Steve, as he breaks out into a sprint across the grass. 

Looking out over the trees that surround “home base”, he can no longer see the faint glow of New York City on the horizon.

They break open the door. They really shouldn’t do that. Someone’s going to have to fix that later on, and it’s not going to be him. He knows in his brain that he’s not going to be fixing anything for a long time.

“Tony?” Someone calls in through the cabin. Nebula’s already made her way outside, and he sees her watchful eye on him through the window. He manages a little wave at her, he’s going to miss her when she leaves. “Tony! Are you in here? She said you were in here!” He doesn’t respond. Believe it or not, Tony’s not really in the mood for a lecture about how they lost it all from the team that abandoned him. 

A figure appears in the doorway, smiling down on him and thank heavens, it’s Rhodey. 

“Rhodey.” He manages to grit out, with a voice scratchy from disuse. “Rhodey.” Again, because Tony can seem in front of him, and when he comes closer he can feel the other man’s arms around his torso, lifting him up and holding him close. He’d almost thought he’d never lay eyes on him again. But in a surge of justice, the universe has spared him from the inevitable. 

“Hey there, Anthony.” Rhodey’s voice has gone all soft and mushy, and he can’t see the man’s face, but he’s almost sure he’s leaking tears. Something must be seriously wrong if Rhodey’s calling him Anthony. “Haven’t seen you in a hot minute.”

He can barely lift his hands to move around Rhodey’s neck, but he’s picking him up anyway and carrying him out. It’s fine, he’s used to being carried out by the others. Or, was used to it. Other than maybe Natasha, he’s always been the smallest of them, not to mention the most vulnerable, the others always stepping in with the urge to protect. When Rhodey carefully guides himself through the ship, Tony in turn wonders where that urge went. Did it slip away as quickly as they did from each other? Or did it take a little longer to shake the need to make sure he was safe? 

He comes to the conclusion that it was the former. Because there sure as hell wasn’t anyone that came to check on him after Siberia. It’s almost funny how that’s when he needed them most. 

As they make their way to the entrance, Tony finds his head drooping with the introduction of fresh oxygen. If not for the fact he had been starved for several weeks, the rush of a new breath of air would’ve sent him scrambling to the lab to use as a booster on the latest project. But there’s a feeling inside that says there’s going to be no lab time for him for a while. Unsupervised, at least.

Once in the entryway, Rhodey eases them down the steps one by one, going slowly with his additional cargo. Tony lifts his head from resting peacefully to look across the brightly lit lawn and immediately wishes he hadn’t. It could almost look like a football field. It’s a funny thought, the fact that what stands upon it are two sides that used to be united.

Steve is there. Steve is there and Steve is waiting for him.

He closes his eyes, and breathing’s hard all of a sudden. Here he was, waxing poetry about how incredible the air was until he’d seen Rogers and now he’s been sucked dry, drier than the ship ever could’ve gotten. Logically, he knows that Rogers doesn’t want to hurt him. All that occurred under different circumstances and blah blah blah. But his subconscious is untrusting. Just the idea of all that power looming under the surface makes him dizzy with dread.

So dizzy he barely recognises Pepper from where he goes back to being shielded by Rhodey’s shoulder.

Rhodey attempts to prop him up at the bottom of the stairs. The first touch of too-long grass to his bare feet is a comfort to him, and obviously too much, because all he can think is “Okay” as he sinks down into it. Steve sees what’s coming and reaches out for him as he falls, but Rhodey puts a well placed hand between them. It’s probably for the best. 

“Tony.” Steve Rogers states, like the most obvious thing in the world. Then, “Medical are on their way.”

Pepper has pushed herself forward from the group, and kneels down to his level. Tony looks up at her, a sight for sore eyes. But he knows that he has gone and changed over the course of a month without her, and he can never again be the man she was engaged to.

“Tony,” she speaks incredulously “oh my god. Tony, you’re alive.” And she’s pushing herself towards him and cupping his face and combing through his hair and all he’s doing is staring at her. He should probably stop that, just to keep the illusion that he is the same as he was going for a little while longer. She’s on the ground with him, and her arms wind around him.

“Pepper.” As if he can’t bear to say any more. “Pepper.”

He’s looking past her as she curls herself as best as she can into the hunger-ridden curve of his side. Past (and what looks to be future) avengers crowd around them like a barricade. With the silhouette from the lights, he can make out Bruce and Natasha, eyes wide and worrying. Carol and Nebula linger on the outskirts, as if almost unwelcome. Thor has hung back completely, face gaunt and empty with a grief Tony is unsure of. Helen’s team, minus Helen herself, walk hurriedly across the greenery.

_What the hell are we meant to do now?_ is the last though before he drifts to unconsciousness. 

+

Tony wakes from his micro sleep as they get him into medbay. Something about the smell of antibacterials and fluorescent lights must have been enough to tip him over the edge of sleep into wakefulness. Rhodey’s hand is steady on the side of the gurney and Natasha guards by his feet.

“Stark. Glad you’ve come to.” Natasha’s voice is softer than he’d imagine for their first reunion in almost two years. It didn’t end well. Nothing ended well between everyone and him. The price for paying the devil’s advocate, apparently.

“Natasha.” He squeezes out. He’s gotten into a good habit of saying people’s names for the five minutes he’s been back on home soil. 

He fights the urge to turn back into whatever’s holding his head up and fall back asleep. But he needs to stay awake. Has to stay awake and alert and aware of his surroundings. He’s waiting.

They push him through the doorway of one of the consulting rooms. Not much medical gear, as to have him not intentionally hurt himself. Someone knows him too well. Hell, everyone’s aware that he can get a bit manic after an event. Especially one like loosing half of the world’s population and the fact that he was at fault for it.

And a window on the far wall.

It overlooks the other side of the compound, the main garage and driveway. A few motorcycles, lonely cars, and his abandoned tangerine Audi, left to collect dust after he’d taken the suit back to New York one afternoon after Peter had needed help. Oh, god. Not Peter. Anyone but Peter. 

It’s terrible because he remembers it like it was yesterday. Peter has called him in to take care of a local thief that was trying to break out of his webs. It had been the middle of July, and he was sweltering in the suit. By the time they’d taken the man to the police department, i.e. left him tied to a light pole outside, they’d perched themselves on a nearby roof and ditched their respective suits. Pete had swung by Ben and Jerry’s before, and they’d wolfed down cones of Stark Raving Hazelnuts. They’d laughed at the summer heat and Tony had taken him back to the tower on his back after Pete had accidentally let slip that his apartment had lost AC. Pete had held onto the suit in a piggy back and had draped over his shoulder. He’d deposited the sleepy spider-child onto his bed and set his sights on sending May a harshly worded text telling her to come over immediately and stay until they’d gotten it fixed. 

_That was a good day_ he thinks, gazing out the window at the forgotten vehicles.

“Tony.” Pepper startles him out of his reverie, suddenly perched by his bedside. _Huh, that’s weird. Didn’t notice her there_. The thought strikes panic into his chest, having always been the most observant of the team. Of everyone, mostly. But his brain is misfiring, missing its targets like an unsteady marksman. He’s getting slow. Tony turns to look at her, fully intending to greet her. Say hello. Ask her how her day was. Something witty. As if he hasn’t been lost in the depths of space and hasn’t spoken to her in a month. But nothing comes out.

_C’mon, Stark. It’s your fiancé. Fucking say something you absolute moron_. But despite his internal monologue, his voice does not make an appearance. The room remains silent, bar the various medical equipment that may or may not be keeping him alive. 

He’s angry now. Fuming, actually. His brain won’t do what he tells it to do. He wants to talk. He wants to say something. Anything. Wants to speak to the woman he was going to call his wife and tell her how sorry he was about not being the man she needed and how he was an idiot for going and a failure for losing. But it won’t come out. His vocal chords make no attempt to move, and for god’s sake why can’t he say anything-

Tony is now aware of the fact that he is eerily calm. He stares blankly at the woman before him, her golden hair and pale complexion and dark circles swimming beneath her eyes. _Do I actually want to say anything?_

But she stays silent too, not hearing his non-verbal scream for help. 

_Is there anything left to be said after the world has ended and it was my fault?_

She instead decides that fleeing is a good option for now. He doesn’t blame her. He would too. “I’ll go and get Steve for you.” Which is funny, because they both know that the last person he wants to see right now is Steve. 

He makes sure to get one last look at her before she leaves, her eyes looking out from under her bangs. Slightly confused lines on her forehead. After all, it might be the last look at her in the flesh he gets. He turns back towards the window and continues to stare.

And with that, Pepper Potts makes her escape.

And to no one else in the compound’s knowledge, Tony Stark makes his.


	2. getaway car

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, yeah. He stole the car. And climbed out a window. That was on the second floor. But he’s feeling a lot better now. In control behind the wheel, probably the only thing he can control at the present point in time. Going to have to get used to that one.
> 
> It might’ve been obvious to take the Audi, but it’s not like he was being discreet. They can check the security footage if they truly fancy watching him get from the window to the car. He’d left the window open, for fuck’s sake.
> 
> Even if they are tracking him, which Tony assumes they are, they won’t get far with that. The signal will follow the car and the car will go on without him. It can travel for miles before gliding itself to a stop somewhere boring and insignificant. The main point is that he’ll be gone.

Okay, yeah. He stole the car. And climbed out a window. That was on the second floor. But he’s feeling a lot better now. In control behind the wheel, probably the only thing he can control at the present point in time. _Going to have to get used to that one._

It might’ve been obvious to take the Audi, but it’s not like he was being discreet. They can check the security footage if they truly fancy watching him get from the window to the car. He’d left the window open, for fuck’s sake. 

Even if they are tracking him, which Tony assumes they are, they won’t get far with that. The signal will follow the car and the car will go on without him. It can travel for miles before gliding itself to a stop somewhere boring and insignificant. The main point is that he’ll be gone.

Meanwhile, the main focus should be on getting to the warehouse. As long as it takes them enough time looking for him for Pepper to send out the signal for everyone else to look for him, he’ll be in the clear. Get to the warehouse. Get to everything he’s built. Decide what stays and what goes. Vanish. _That’s definitely original and not cliche at all._

So he drives. There’s nothing else to do, nothing to see but what’s being illuminated by the headlights in front of him. The most important thing is that he’s getting away. Starting anew and fresh without the weight of a gold titanium alloy prison around him. It means free movement. Away from the compound and Pepper and Steve and Rhodey and everything. Tony didn’t want to have to leave them. Didn’t intentionally want to leave them wondering about him. But he can’t be what they want him to be, what they’re going to want him to be. It’s the price you pay. It’s been time to wipe the hard drive for a while, and that means a long, hard push to everyone that loves him. It’s just the way it is. 

He peers through the windshield, out into the depths of the night. Route 84 stretches out long in front of him, headlights cutting like lasers through the abandoned motorway. The engine hums beneath his feet on the pedals, and it roars to life when he pushes it towards the floor. The car glides with him, weaving through car wrecks and open doors with a practiced agility. 

It’s ethereal. Abandoned cars on a lonely highway. It hits Tony then and there. _No one’s coming back for them. No one’s coming back for him. No one’s coming back at all._

  
The car slows to a stop amongst the other stagnant vehicles. The Avengers are 50 miles behind him, crawling closer by the second.

_And isn’t that terrifying_.

+

The Stark Industries Southern Massachusetts Distribution Centre is a lonely place during the daytime. Run only by robots and machinery and artificial intelligence, maintenance are the only ones through here, visiting for a monthly check up. Though the apocalypse has come and gone, it remains this way, humanity’s disappearance doing little to disrupt the production of electronics that it specialises in. The only notable difference is the pile of packed and ready boxes at the back dock, waiting for a truck that is not coming. 

For Tony, it’s always been a good hiding place. At the end of a long and winding path in the backcountry of the East Coast, he’d camped out here several times during the late eighties while trying to escape his father’s wrath. But back then, while used to shield himself from the fiery anger of Howard’s words, it now acts as the final destination before moving on into a new chapter.

His keycard to the back door works. In hindsight, using his keycard was a bad idea. If he’d just gone with the passcode, it could’ve been debatable who it was. Now everyone will know it was him who came here.

_No doubt that’ll put Pep back on my trail_ Tony thinks, walking down a lonely corridor towards the sound of still-functioning hydraulics. But it doesn’t worry him. If anything, it solidifies the need to burn it all. Turn it all to dust. He cracks a smile at that.

_Wow,_ he scolds himself _are we doing puns already? That wasn’t even funny._

In theory, there’s no need for a control room at this facility. It was never made for human intervention. But because Tony’s a paranoid son of a bitch, he’d put one in in 2009. _“Safeguarding” my ass_ he pulls open the door J _ust say you’re neurotic and go._ The air is stale and he almost imagines the dust bunnies being extremely surprised to see him. To see anyone.

The supercomputer has one redeeming quality at the present point in time, the fact that it connects to the Stark Secure Server. _God I hate that. Why do I have to slap my name on everything?_ After plugging in his credentials, the entirety of his work is open to him. Everything he’s ever had a hand in. Some of it is even pre-Iron-Man. Blueprints for old missiles and assault rifles. Possible upgrades for the suit. A post-mortem of the Mark 46, the distinct indentation in the Arc Reactor more prominent than ever. The sight makes his chest ache, a pain that almost wishes for the RT to be put back in his chest, so he can breathe again. 

_That’s funny. I haven’t felt like that in a long time. A sign of the times_ he guesses, and continues sifting through what he wants to keep and what he wants gone. 

Tony’s growing more numb by the second, the influx of data taking its toll on how he doesn’t care what stays and what goes. He centralises F.R.I.D.A.Y. to the Tower. _Pepper has to stay safe, even if I can’t be the one to do it anymore._ He leaves her the R&D designs, in fact, almost everything in regards to the company is left untouched. Well, except for the weapon designs, that make him want to tear his hair out in agony. They go to the erase pile. It gets to the point where every Iron Man design sits before him. A testament to everything he’s built since his “rebirth”.

_If Iron Man was created during a rebirth_ Tony reasons _I guess it’s only fitting that he’s destroyed in another._ He erases the files. Everything Tony has built, has worked towards is returned to its original state; scraps.

He loads up a data stick with his parting gift to himself, and deletes all evidence of himself from the server.

+

While packing up the flaming red Thunderbird that he’d left here in 1987 after Rhodey had taken him back to college, Tony realises he probably should’ve said something to Pepper. That he probably shouldn’t have left her wondering about them, about him. He should’ve at least given her a clean break.

_I should’ve left a note_ he ponders after driving away through the steel opening gates. _Isn’t that what people do? Leave a note?_ and it is a memory of something that the Tony of a month ago might’ve remembered. 

+

The cottage is warmer now that he’s gotten the fireplace up and running. He sends out a lonely text to number that has long been seared in the back of his mind.

**hey. i’m at the nursery. if you made it through, meet me. if you want to. - a**

He peers out of the windows to the forest. The wood surrounding the place has long been untamed and frost piles up on the trees. It’s a lot further north than he was a few hours ago. The light from the fire lights up the reflection of the window, and Tony’s face flickers in front of him. _Ugh._

The cottage was old. A hipster-like vintage with a rocking chair and a gas-lit oven. Shelves of textbooks on their respective majors. Bound papers of theories that they were sure would change the world which turned out to be insignificant in both of their paths. Not that Tony’s been keeping up with his. At all.

The window above the small dining table almost stretches completely over the wall. It’s suspiciously larger than necessary. Not to the untrained eye, but Tony is not untrained. Tony remembers many conversations about the world and engineering and many other matters that surrounded such a window. If that wasn’t enough, the tiny plug in the bottom left hand corner certainly gives it away.

Tony fumbles with the USB in his pocket. It was a heavy weight on the drive here, almost slowing him down as he desperately fled from his past. He’d debated on whether or not he should’ve even kept it, or if he should’ve let it burn like the rest. But he needed something. And after over 20 years of having an AI on his side, he’d probably be lost without a virtual moral compass.

The USB slides into the plug, and the window, previously adorned with the outside view of the forest before him, becomes a electronic display, lighting up the cottage with LED light. The letters on the screen reflect in his eyes, and Tony becomes unsure about his choice to spare this specific file from deletion.

**M.O.R.G.A.N. - Micro-Organizer Retrofitted for Guaranteed Assurance and Nurture**

He’d woken up that morning, after his nightmare of a dream, and immediately started on it. It’d been a paranoid-haze of a day, when he’d marked out everything that he would need, everything about him that needed to be changed.

It was a program, built specifically for him. The dream that’d been shaken awake from that morning had left a sear on his frontal lobe, inducing fear into his heart. Because like a prophecy, it was a glimpse into the future. A tiny little baby taking up a place in their lives. It seemed surreal, an outcome that he hadn’t prepared for. And as Tony Stark, most prepared person in the world, that was terrifying.

The next few mornings after that, he’d been left restless, the fantasy now taking over his slumber. But it wasn’t always pleasant. The second morning after the dream had occurred, Tony had been woken by a phantom yelp from said child, and the daunting possibility of history repeating itself within the Stark family has sent him into a panic-ridden trance to perfect the code.

The thought that Howard could’ve wormed his way, his methods, into Tony’s own parenting ability had struck him to his core, leaving him exhausted and hysterical on the floor of his workshop. A reminder that the daydream could quickly turn sour and into his own personal hell. It was debilitating. It pulled his brain to pieces of illusion mixed with memory with the idea of his own child, Pepper’s child, being resigned to the same fate that Tony once was. Slaps against cheeks that echoed in silent rooms. Tools thrown in the direction of a small hand in a fit of rage. 

So he’d created MORGAN. 

A way to ensure that no child he would ever come into contact with would ever have to suffer the way that he did under Howard’s hand. She would teach him apathy. To be nurturing. To be caring and comforting. And perhaps most importantly, the ability to let go of his trauma in exchange for a new beginning.

Pepper didn’t know about it, and he’d made sure of that. He wouldn’t be able to deal with the shame of her knowing that her fiancé was too incapable to be a father that he had to make a computer to fix him. The shame of making it was enough. He wasn’t even sure why he told her about the dream, when the thought of it alone made him hollow with dread. 

The screen in front of him is a hurtful reminder of those few days of hell, yet precious learning time, before he was whisked away to another planet and the child he’d once had turned to dust in his arms. A fateful reminder of his incompetency. But MORGAN pipes up, her artificial, cheery voice sounds through the speakers on either side of the once-window.

“Hello, dad.”

A mistake. He hadn’t even meant to write it into her code. Tony had just wanted to know what it felt like. To be someone’s dad. But even now, a slight smiles creeps upon his features. A reminder of a distant something. _Peter_ his brain murmurs.

“Hello, Mo.”

+

Steve stands at the window in his room. Tony’s room. The one he escaped from mere hours ago. A part of him wants to be out there, searching for Tony himself, but he knows that it’d be no good. If anything, Steve is sure he is the last person that Tony wants to see right now. He’s still unsure whether they should still be looking for Tony. Maybe he needs peace, after everything that’s happened, and the now less-bustling Avengers compound is certainly not the place for that.

The glass door to the suite squeaks on its steel hinges, and Pepper Potts pokes her head in, only to lay eyes on Steve. Steve may also be the last person she wants to see right now. Her expression is carefully schooled, and Steve almost can’t believe she’s here too, and not out with the others scouring New York state for any trace of Tony.

“Captain Rogers.” Pepper breaks the uncertain silence between them. She’s looking as confident as ever, always knowing her worth in every situation, but the hint of uneasiness in her eyes and in the lines on her forehead almost calls to him to comfort her. But she doesn’t need that. Not right now and not by Steve Rogers. 

“Miss Potts,” Steve responds after a heavy pause “any updates on him?” He can see her holding back her retorts. _Why should you care about him anyway? You certainly didn’t care about him for the two years you weren’t here._ Maybe he’s deserving of that, maybe not. There has been little change here for two years to have passed, all the rooms seeming unchanged and stale. But then again, that might not be the case. Tony always seemed to breathe life into everything he touched, it’s not surprising that even a month passing without him seems like a lifetime. 

Pepper sighs, closing the door behind her and easing herself onto the bed that once held her now-missing fiancé. She’s worn, but holding her own. Steve admires her for her strength, and almost wishes he had her composure. “Rhodey’s out searching in the suit. But I won’t be surprised if he doesn’t find anything. Sometimes it’s obvious when Tony doesn’t want to be found.” 

Steve almost chuckles at that. “Yeah, Rhodes told me once ‘You don’t find Tony Stark, he finds you.’ That was after three days in the workshop straight, though.I’m not sure if that can be applied to this.” Pepper looks doubtful at that.

“Tony will run and hide when he’s defeated.” She pauses, her expression growing almost scrutinising “Why do you think he spent all that time down in the workshop when all of you were here?”

Steve is on the spot now, feeling the need to start breathing heavier, though his body for sure does not require that. “I don’t know” He eventually gets out, but he does know. Deep down, he’s always known. “Anything else on him?”

Pepper sighs, as if releasing her anger towards him. She leans back on the bed and stares at the ceiling. Steve returns to his gaze out the window, pinpointing the spot where Tony’s car once was. “I got a notification from the Massachusetts Distribution Centre that someone entered the control room.”

Steve perks up at that “You think it was him?” He’s hopeful, but wouldn’t have Pepper led with that if it meant anything? 

She scoffs. “Of course it was him. But he’s long gone from there now. He accessed the server and then erased his entry. But not before FRIDAY told me about it.”

He turns to the woman on the bed, leaning against the wall next to him for support. “What did he access on the server? Anything that might tell us where he is?” Her eyes are closed now, the lines on her forehead still giving away her mental state.

“Everything relating to the company is stable. He’s without FRIDAY, though. She’s only working at the tower and through devices now.” Which explains the lack of response when Steve had looked upward and asked for an update a few hours ago. But on the other hand, imagining Tony without FRIDAY is a scary concept. Steve had always felt more secure in knowing that FRIDAY had Tony’s back when he didn’t out in the field. Now Tony is out in the field, out in the wasteland that is the world, without anyone. Not even FRIDAY.

But Pepper continues. “He deleted all of the Iron Man designs. Every single one of them.” Her voice is candid, not unsurprised. Steve has double understanding the extent of that statement. Why would Tony delete all of them? Even when designing a new one, wouldn’t he want to have a guide to work off of? Then again, he is the smartest man in the world. But all of his work, for what reason?

“Why would he do that?” Steve’s unsettled now. It’s as if Tony has no care for himself. He’s purged everything and gone dark. A strange behaviour from the man who stood his ground two years ago and stayed in place while the other Avengers rained from him. Tony was fearless back then, and Steve the fearful. But now the roles have been reversed and Steve is filled with questioning. _Did Tony ever feel like this about us? Did he ever worry about us being alone out there, even though he was against us?_ “Does he normally start from scratch?”

Pepper sits up at that, and looks uncomfortably into his eyes. “Not ever. The one time he told me he would, he went and created Veronica. What does that tell you about him now?”

A gust of cold wind whistles past the window, and the mismatched pair are brought to silence once again. Pepper’s question echoes and Steve is terrified for Tony. Out in the world with no one in his corner. Whatever happened between them in the past is irrelevant now.

_Reach out to us_ Steve Rogers silently prays, _Your family is here_. _I know that you’re hurting, but we’re all worried for you. Please, Tony. There is no one out there for you._

+

A car door slams somewhere behind the house, a sudden excitement in the lonesome woodland. Tony knows it’s him. They’d always park their cars at the back of the cabin, giving the illusion of isolation. Then again, they never really had anything to worry about on that front. They were always the only ones there.

Footsteps up the porch and keys jangling in the lock. _Why did I lock it behind me?_ A sensible place in Tony’s head asks. _I knew he would come_ a less sensible one whispers. An excitement almost like fears fills him. Nothing he’s felt in a long time. Since before Iron Man. It puts his brain into overload and if the past 24 hours, hell the past month, didn’t feel real, this sure puts the icing on the cake. Because the moment has passed and the door has opened and Tony is standing in front of the table looking like an absolute idiot while

Tiberius Stone stands in the doorway. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh! wildcard character!
> 
> if you've read the comics (or even other fics) you might have an idea of what's about to come ;)


	3. time heals all, apparently

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is almost nothing to be said between the two men. You’d think that after 30 years that there’d be a subject to converse over. Catching up. Who’s married and who’s broken up. What engineering marvels each have produced since they last saw each other. But that’s not how the deal went.
> 
> Anthony Stark stares back at Tiberius Stone and the years pass between them. Many words unspoken and nothing but meters between them now. The past is almost forgotten, but if both are truthful, they could never forget what happened here.

_1-9-8-9_

“Y’know what we should call it?” he’s lying upside down on the couch, ass in the air and feet resting against the wall above it “The Daycare. Because you’re such a fucking child!” The last part is yelled, as the brown-haired boy standing before him grabs a pillow and smacks Tony down from his perch. He’s fallen in front of the couch now, arms above his head and looking up into the orange ceiling light.

“I won’t dispute that. It’s true.” Anthony Stark lies on the floor, keeping a low profile. An attempt to stay serious in front of the other boy. “It’s even more fitting, you know. Seeing as you’re here too.” To which he snatches the forgotten pillow beside him and launches it directly upward at the smiling face of Tiberius Stone. It hits his face before flopping back down to the floor beside Tony.

The two look at each other, grinning for a solid few seconds, and then bursting into laughter. Tiberius kneels down, eventually lying beside him in order to be able to put a sly arm around Tony’s waist, who flinches at the unfamiliar touch. With a suppressed smile, Tony tilts his face around to face the other boy, who does nothing but stare back at him.

Tony’s voice is still squeaky, though it is rarely anything but when he’s with Ty. He’s leaning in closer to him, nearing his face, and their noses would almost touch if Ty just moved a tad closer. Which he does, smiling serenely back at Tony, who speaks “The Nursery.”

“That’s cute. But it’s a metaphor, isn’t it.” Ty almost groans in that way that means he’s exasperated with Tony, but still quite fond of him. “It’s always a metaphor with you.”

Anthony Stark looks back at Tiberius, hair stuck up at all angles from the pillow fight that had occurred just minutes earlier, still powdered sugar on his nose from their aborted attempt at baking cinnamon scrolls, and thinks suddenly, _oh_.

“The Nursery,” Tony states, staring back up into Ty’s face where he has just realised, in a terrifying moment of clarity, that is where his heart lies “where ideas are born and raised.” Ty doesn’t react right away, instead pulling away from the closeness of their faces to look up and out of the window. He ponders, dark brows furrowing and laugh lines in the corners of his eyes slowly appearing with his grin. Tony’s own smile lifts with it.

“Well, that’s cheesy.” Ty looks back down at him now, no doubtably staring into his soul with his grey eyes that seem to give nothing away these days, no matter how far Tony looks into them. “It’s very you, though. Don’t know what I expected, really. Is it too much to ask that a house gets a logical name and not one of your stupid metaphors?” He’s almost laughing now, a good sign that there’s nothing else, nothing sinister lurking beneath his surface. 

_That’s good_ , Tony concludes, beginning to laugh himself before a bad memory rises to the top. “They’re not stupid.” His voice grows smaller, now that he’s thought about it. Howard’s voice lingers in the forefront of his mind. 

He’d always been too emotional, too overwhelmed with feelings for his father’s sympathy. There was no time for poetry and literature when there were real things, like science, to be studied. Tony’d hidden his worn copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray that he’d stolen from the library under his mattress. He’d held a flashlight under his duvet and read it until his eyes grew sore and he could recite every word. The the morning after Howard had found him, Tony’s under-eyes were far deeper and darker than any 10 year old’s should be. And not because he hadn’t been sleeping. 

Ty has begun to catch on now, moving in closer to Tony’s face again. Resting his forearm on the ground next to Tony, the other moves up to his hair, a comforting gesture for the painful memory left. “Tony. It’s okay.”

The fireplace still burns their shadows into the wall behind the couch, a phantom memory of the flashlight glared in the direction of his eyes. Tony’s scared that someone’s going to throw the covers off of them any moment now, and he’s going to be left exposed, just like last time.

“They’re _not_ stupid.” His voice is hard and hurt. Tony can barely breathe, let alone get a coherent thought out, not when Howard’s shadow is still the one he sees on the wall.

“You’re right. They’re not.” Ty’s voice has gone all funny, it’s like there’s something sticking his lips together, as if he can barely get a word out either. He never was good at apologies.”They’re not stupid, Tony. It’s a cute name. I like it.”

Tony can’t tell if Ty is being real or is just keeping him pliable, pleasing him for the sake of it. “He wouldn’t like it.” His gaping wound is open, and Ty already knows about this. He knows how to react, that Tony told him that he should brush it off and not bring it up. But to Tony’s surprise, he doesn’t.

“Tony, he’s not here.” A pause that could last a lifetime. Tony’s burning alive right in front of the couch with the flames on the wall dancing over his skin. And for a second, it’s Howards above him, reaching down to-

“Of course he wouldn’t like it. He doesn’t like his own son. He doesn’t like you.” Ty has switched tactics now, poking fun at his worst demon. But right now, said demon is in no position to poke back. Not in here. Not with Ty. “Why should we care? He obviously had no taste.”

Ty remains close to him, a performer in waiting for a response. Tony, the twisted boy he is, chokes out a tiny laugh, which grows as his face scrunches up and the tears in his eyes leak out without his knowledge. Ty has seen this as a go-ahead, an approval of fun-making at the expense of his abuser. The word still feels icky in his head, like honey, getting everywhere it touches. _Gross_.

“Yeah well,” Tony rustles up his courage “he didn’t like me kissing boys either.” They’re leaning on each other now, and rather than being burned alive, Tony is warmed by the flames. “But you’re still here.”

_2-0-1-8_

Let it be known that James Rupert Rhodes has never once given up on Tony Stark. Not in the desert of Afghanistan. Not at the disaster of The Expo. Not in the wreckage of Sokovia. And definitely not in the aftermath of the biggest genocide like, ever. 

The Massachusetts Distribution Centre is unmoving, and the only sign that Tony has been here is the disrupted dust on the keyboard to the mainframe. Tony had turned off the machines before he left, never being one to waste materials where they are not needed. James is almost sure he won’t find any other trace of Tony here.

If he’s real with himself, he knows exactly where Tony’s gone. He was, unsurprisingly, the only other person to know about it, other than the two people that it involved. If he looks deep down into his brain, James knows where Tony’s run off to. He just doesn’t know if he’s strong enough to admit it.

The truth is, he’s still rivalling with his college self, the James that told Tony he would never go back there. The James that promised he would never tell anyone about it. The James that swore he would never step foot into it after he’d dragged Tony almost screaming from the door and had strapped him into the passenger seat and driven far, far away from that nightmare of a cottage. The James from 1989 doesn’t want to tell anyone, and despite everything that’s happened, he doesn’t want to go there. He made a promise, and he intends to keep it.

They’d tracked the car as far as it got on the motorway, but James knew that it’d be empty. Tony would always get to where he needed to be. He flown to the empty vehicle in the middle of the road, knowing that’d be abandoned when he laid eyes on it.

The moral-compass inside of him is wavering. It’s the end of the world, basically. Everything has gone to absolute dogshit in a month and the Earth is not, in any way, recovering. Tony can help with that. Tony would help with that. He would find a solution and get it done before dinner time and they’d all have celebratory Chinese with the newly-revived. 

But Tony has lost a kid. James carried him off of that spaceship two days ago with half of a heart missing and the light in his eyes departed and no Peter-shaped figure following him. Tony is out there and Tony is hurting and maybe it’s goddamn time that he got a rest. 

Yes, the apocalypse is well and truly upon them, but if there was ever a surer sign that Tony Stark has nothing left in him, him running to that cursed cottage was one.

“Pepper.” James speaks into the comms. The decision has been made. By god, he loves Pepper, but he can’t tell her about the cottage. She would run to Tony and Tony cannot deal with that right now. Her voice is gravely when she answers through a bout of static.

“Anything?” He can hear how tired she is, can basically see the lines on her forehead and her messy hair through the radio. For a split second, he debates on just letting it all out. But he can’t.

“He took the car.” His voice is cracking from disuse, or maybe he’s still coming to terms with the fact that half the world is dead. Probably the former, he always caught on pretty quick. “The Thunderbird.”

Pepper’s sigh is a weight on his back, almost drowning him in guilt. She’s almost at the point of exasperated now. “Any idea where he might be?”

“No. Not a one,” and James hopes that his voice doesn’t give away that he’s lying to her.

+

There is almost nothing to be said between the two men. You’d think that after 30 years that there’d be a subject to converse over. Catching up. Who’s married and who’s broken up. What engineering marvels each have produced since they last saw each other. But that’s not how the deal went.

Anthony Stark stares back at Tiberius Stone and the years pass between them. Many words unspoken and nothing but meters between them now. The past is almost forgotten, but if both are truthful, they could never forget what happened here.

Tiberius inches forward, more being pulled towards Tony than consciously doing so. His hair has moved into the silver territory, but dark enough that you wouldn’t be able to tell without a close look. Tiberius’s eyes remain more grey than ever, and are almost gaping as they look back at Tony. His mouth parts, almost as if he’s going to come out and acknowledge everything that happened between them and all of the past that they can’t change but instead what comes out is-

“You haven’t been eating.”

Thirty one years of not a word from him and avoiding each other at all cost yet moving in the same social circles, and the first thing that Tiberius Stone talks to him about is his recent eating habits. _Classic_.

“Well, I didn’t really think it mattered much, considering we just lost half of the global population,” Tony’s temper flares behind his eyes, but his weakness is caught behind his throat, making his voice come out all chopped and choked. God, you’re not going to cry in front of Tiberius Stone.

Tiberius schools his features, undoubtably from the anger threatening to bite back. He’s a lot more subdued these days, but world degradation takes its toll, apparently. His face is calm, browsslightly raised in apprehension and right hand resting on his thigh. “I knew you wouldn’t have had anything. There’s food in the car.”

Tony is almost left shaken. “You packed food?” The _because you still knew that I wouldn’t_ goes unsaid, but is loud in the ruins of his mind. _Well, of course he brought food. He still remembers you, doesn’t he?_

“I picked up some on the way here. I found a mom-and-pop on the highway.” Tiberius hauls up the bag in his hand, and rifles through the pockets before pulling out a bottled cold brew. Not that he can see the voice in his head, but he’s sure that it smiles at that one. _Gotcha. There’s your proof. He’s still who he was deep down. He’s still the boy you fell in love with._

_And then sequentially fell out of love with_ his moral compass bites. Tiberius walks closer to him with steady steps, holding the iced coffee like a peace offering. Although Tony wars with himself over taking or not, the final bit of distrust in him putting up a last fight, Tony accepts the ill-timed gift. He probably shouldn’t be drinking any sort of caffeine at the moment, but exceptions must be made. 

With the coffee out of his hands, Tiberius brushes right past him like it means nothing and slowly pulls out a chair to sit at the head of the dining room table. Like this is a board meeting or something. It’s like an interrogation now, when Tony was under the impression that it’d be a lot-more _hi we’re just mutual friends that had a falling out once but now we’ve got to fix the world_ kind of business. But that doesn’t seem like the road that Tiberius is going to take.

“Come sit down, Tony.” Tony can hear the suspicion in his tone, like Tiberius is taunting a lion. A part of him wants to deny him. Claim that he’s better than this. But Tony chose to come here and so did Tiberius. They’re both here, exactly like they said they would be when they agreed to be, before everything between them went to shit and now everything’s just gotten a whole lot worse.

Tony stills, but moves down to sit at the desk, _shit_. _Now I’m doing exactly what he wants me to do. It’s been two minutes. Isn’t that nice?_

It’s Tiberius who goes first. “We need to lay down some ground rules.” He’s obviously thought about this in advance. _Was it on the car ride here, or was it before that? How long has he been thinking about this?_ “We need to do this and we need to get this done. I know that I can never expect you to be truly professional, especially around you, but things have happened. And we’re on the clock.”

_What clock? Seems to me like we’ve got all the time in the world to get the other half of the universe back._ He silences his thoughts, returning to the matter at hand. _Well, better late than never._ “I can’t afford to fall in love with you again.” 

Tiberius does a double check, a practiced response, to figure out if Tony just said what he thought he said. Hell, Tony himself is trying to work outfit he just said what he said. “Well-. Yes. That’d be the best way to put it.” And Tony is honestly shocked at that response. 

“There is a lot at stake here, Tony. We have a chance to either make things better, or to make them worse than ever. I’m sure you lost people.” The silence stretches. His mind desperately tries to resist the pull of _PeterPeterPeter_ , but sinks down into its depths anyway.

“I lost my kid.” _Yes, that’s the way to put it. Distance yourself from him by putting a person who is at stake between the two of you._ “I lost my son.”

This must catch him off guard, because Tiberius fully stills. His response comes out frozen and halting. “I. I’m sorry. I didn’t. I didn’t know you had.” And that’s funny, because Peter wasn’t his son, but by God Tony wishes he was. Because then maybe his grief would be consolable. That he lost something that was his own, and didn’t lose something that wasn’t even his to lose.

“It’s okay. Almost no one does.” Tony lets himself live in the fantasy that he is Peter’s father and that the parent that is grieving for Peter is him, just for a moment. “Right. Now that that’s been settled. Let’s get to work.”

Tony, stands up from where he’s stiff in his seat, and brushes Tiberius’ shoulder on his way to start up the smartboard. _Well, that went well_.

_1-9-8-9_

He lies awake, too still and stiff under the covers that Ty unconsciously pulls closer to him. Ty stirs, eyes squinting and shoulders shuffling, being able to tell that something isn’t quite right from the fact that the blankets move right out from atop of Tony. Tony’s always been a blanket hog, it’s his most unflattering quality. That, or being the son of America’s largest weapons manufacturer. That one might just take the cake.

Ty reaches a hand out across Tony’s shoulders and languidly manoeuvres his arms around the boy. Tony’s being pulled and prodded over to Ty’s side of the bed and he could honestly care less when Ty tucks him under his chin and into his shoulder. Anything to make his brain stop will do nicely. The hair at the back of Ty’s neck is barely damp with sweat and still smells like the Yves Saint Laurent cologne that he’d sprayed on after dinner. 

“Oh, Tony. I can hear the cogs turning in your head,” Ty’s barely-there voice is a rumble through his chest, vibrating against Tony’s skull and filling him up with sunny heat. “Go to sleep already.”

“I was just…” Tony’s aborted response lacks confidence, and he finds himself clamming up at the thought of revealing his true intentions to Tiberius. 

“Thinking. Yes, my dear. Sometimes I wonder if it’s all you ever do.” Ty is obviously still in sleep mode. Tony jumps at the chance. If Ty doesn’t remember this happening, maybe Tony won’t have to think about it anymore. He’ll reveal himself as being needy to Ty and get it off of his chest, whether or not Ty remembers it in the morning is not his problem. “Now tell me, what’s wrong?”

“Tiberius,” Tony’s voice is a quiet mumble facing the pillow above Ty’s shoulder. Oh god, he’s really scared now isn’t he. Scared to reveal that behind his careless facade, Ty had made him feel things.

“If the world ever ends,” At this, Ty perks up, and Tony knows he’s been caught. Tiberius Stone turns him over, onto his side, and stares at his face, as threatening as a man running on 2 hours sleep can be. Their noses almost touching once again, silence sits itself down and waits.

Ty’s voice almost shakes, because Tony is still close enough to feel the hitch through his torso. “Say it.”

“If the world ever ends,” Tony shuts his eyes tight. Maybe if he doesn’t look, he wont see Ty’s disappointment at hearing what he has to say. “And you and I are still alive.”

“Promise me that you’ll come back here, and we’ll work it out.” Tony’s eyes burn from being crammed shut, but Tiberius seems unfazed by his proposal. To put the final nail in the coffin, Tony solidifies it. “Together.”

Ty huffs a small laugh, and pulls Tony back in with less-than-optimal grace. Ty’s hands circle his ribcage and Tony’s already too hot for it but he doesn’t really care at the moment.

“Come back?” Ty’s pause could hold a lifetime. “Sweetheart, I’m not planning on leaving you.”

In a cottage in the middle of a wood where no one knows where these boys are, Tony’s gut rolls with a premonition he can’t quite place.


	4. hit and miss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I promised myself, after I got off of that ship. That I’d never be Iron Man again.”
> 
> The other man sits up, face alight with something that Tony cannot decipher. “Never be Iron Man again?” Ty’s voice is incredulous, awake with fresh surprise.
> 
> Tony pauses. He can feel his own brain split down the centre from saying it out loud. “I don’t think I can ever be. That. Again.” I guess that’s what happens when you let go of something that you almost died for. Several times, in fact.

Another piece of furiously scrunched paper flies past Tiberius’s face, before hitting the ground just short of the trashcan beside his armchair.

“God, it doesn’t work! Nothing ever works, does it?” Tony is the picture of frustration, head bent over the dining room table, back hunched as he mechanically taps his forehead up and down on the timber. Tiberius himself is much less unfazed, not even looking up from his book before responding.

“Of course it doesn’t work, Tony. You’ve been at it for ten hours-“

“I can go longer than that.”

“-so take a break. I’ll even let you have another coffee if you promise to lie down for at least ten minutes.” He sounds like a bargaining parent, which still astounds Tony. When Tiberius had made him promise that they were going to be professional, Tony was under the impression that he’d be much more forceful than that. Tiberius was always the sensible one, always the one ordering Tony to be responsible, and it’s surprising that nothing has changed. 

While Tiberius seems very content to sit down and read about, Tony tilts his head to see the title, The Wonders of Quantum Mechanics, Tony himself is in another level of hell.

Tony sits himself up, ready to take on the calm beast that is Tiberius Stone relaxed. “You obviously are not taking this as seriously as I thought you would.” It’s poking the bear, but Tony can’t be bothered to do anything else at the moment. His previous tunnelling theory had, evidently, gone nowhere, and arguing with Tiberius is a familiar behaviour that’s easy to slip back into provided one has the temptation.

Tiberius remains the epitome of stable, calmly looking up at the other child-like man and making his stance perfectly clear with his lack of brow movement. “I’m taking it extremely seriously. I, unlike yourself, just understand the concept of taking breaks." Although his words are a barb, Tony’s more upset at his tone. _It’s not the same as it used to be. I kind of liked it when he used to scream at me and tell me off for being unreasonable._

“I don’t need a break.” Tony’s bratty now, all worked up for no reason at all, in full foot-stamping toddler mode. “I need you to understand that quantum tunnelling could be useful, and possibly could solve our problems, but you’re not participating in that!” His anger has gone through the roof, and he can practically see his own lips pout.

Tiberius, on the other hand, is perfectly unruffled, despite Tony’s outrage. He leans forward, eyes clear and head straight, and looks at Tony directly, despite the man turning away from him.

“Tony, I understand that you’re angry. But we established at the start that quantum tunnelling would be useless as wave-like behaviour would be totally useless to us.” Tony never could look away when Ty was talking about science. His eyes don’t light up like a mesmerised child, rather he stays calm and collected. Like he knows it all, like he’s in control of science and not the other way around. It’s powerful. He used to think it was scary too. “It’s not the waves we’re looking for, Tony. It’s the particles of the stones themselves.”

_Here comes a thought._ “Unless we could harness the power of the stones through their wavelength. They’re unaffected by time, so there has to be remnants of them somewhere.” It’s a lightbulb moment. _Bingo._

Tiberius perks up in the slightest, a small smile fitting itself upon his features. “Yes. Wherever they were used, their pure energy must have made an indent on the fabrication of time, quite possibly.” _We always were good together_ the traitorous voice whispers in Tony’s head. 

“Yes. That’s it. This may be it. This might definitely be it.” His brain surges forward like a train leaving the station, power is connected to the circuit, and suddenly he’s spinning a mile a minute with possibilities. Tony finds himself at the smartboard already, fingers grabbing and opening files, dozens of tests already taking up space in his overrun mind. “We could run some simulations. I’ve got an idea for something to do with the-“

Tiberius is behind him, a steady hand covering his on the board. He’s taller than Tony, especially when Tony’s barefoot. His breath tickles his ear and hair and Tony can smell his Yves Saint Laurent. His other hand hovers by Tony’s waist, and it’s a memory of what was before, but a step back. _This is what it’s like now. What it must be like now._

“Tony.” Ty is a firm weight behind him. “You need to have a rest. Simulations can be run later.”

Ty doesn’t get how important this is. Doesn’t understand that he has to do this. For Peter. It’s a parental need inside of him that rages fire and screams that he has to get his child back. But Ty takes everything out of him. His composure is a slight reminder of home and it makes Tony want to sink into him and never wake up. But Peter is still there and Peter is dead and Tony has to get him back. A war rages inside of him that he cannot control.

“I have to do this.”

A tiny chuckle. And Tiberius is back again, pulling Tony back down into the depths to which he said he’d never venture again. “Later. If you’re going to save the world, Iron Man needs to be able to do it.” And shit. That’s exactly what he didn’t need. The mention of the cage that held him for so long and kept him responsible for everything that went wrong in the world. _You should’ve told him, you absolute idiot._

“Okay?” Ty asks with a stroke on his hand, keeping Tony pliable and exactly where he wants him to be. And shit, Tony is tired, after all.

“Okay.”

+

Pepper’s phone is silent. And it stays that way.

Not that she expected him to call her within a week, but a part of her hoped that he’d at least keep her up to date with what’s going on. _Hey Pep, I just need to fix the world. Love you. Be back in a week_. Or _I know what to do, I just need some time. See you in a bit._ Or god forbid she get a _Safe._

It lies in solitude on her desk, a silent reminder of who isn’t here right now and the building filled with half of the staff it usually is. Her office is quite often empty. Most of the time it’s just her and the New York skyline. Sometimes, if Pepper focuses hard enough on the tops of the buildings, she can almost pretend that everything is back to normal. You can’t see the car wrecks or the mangled street lights when you look up. The buildings are left untouched. There’s just half as many people in them as there usually is. It’s a logical thought, but it feels lonely under the surface.

She’s always been logical, but even she knows that a genocide involving mystery stones that now no longer exist, according to Steve Rogers, isn’t going to be the sort of weekend fix-up she’s normally used to with Tony. Who knows if the stones are even destroyed? It wouldn’t be the first time Rogers has hidden something from them. 

There’s still clean up and rescue measures in place. She’s running things for the Stark Relief Foundation, not that that’s unusual. Pepper always was fit for control. When Happy escorts her to the store each night, there are still children wandering the streets, too young to speak and wondering where their parents are. The bodega in near Wall Street where she usually gets her coffee on the weekends is lonely without the old German man behind the counter, his younger son with blank eyes now stood blearily at the till.

When Rhodey carried Tony out of that ship two weeks ago, and when Tony slid down into that grass and just laid there like he wished it would take him, she knew that things were not the same. Things were not the same as they had been the month before, when he’d called her from an alien spaceship and promised to be home by dinner and to _make sure that they had extra goat’s cheese in the fridge because the kid likes it_. When Tony had come back without the kid and the suit nowhere in sight, something in Pepper had stung with change. She’d hugged him in the grass of the Compound surrounded by the other Avengers and known just from the look in his eyes that he was done with the life that he had had before. 

Grief, it changes people. And Tony’s had a lot of it.  


Tony is out there, somewhere beyond the city. Rhodey traced him as far as the Distribution Centre, but even Pepper knows that there’s something that he’s not telling her. She wouldn’t be surprised if he knows where Tony is, but if he’s keeping it from her, he must have a reason to. 

Unbelievably, Pepper’s not okay with Tony ditching her and going off on his own. She’s used to it, but every time it happens it’s a shot in her heart. She wants to know what’s going on in his brain, what kind of thoughts are passing through. He is out of her reach, and that’s hard. It makes her more angry than frustrated. Because he made her a promise, and although he didn’t break it, he left her. 

There’s no traffic noise now. That was one special thing for Pepper. The fact that she was on the 50th floor and was still able to hear horns honking and tyres screeching. New York is silent now, the odd siren echoing in the streets without the symphony of cars that used to come with it. 

She sips her tea, cold after hours of sitting on her window sill. There’s still work to be done here. Maybe if she closes her eyes for a second, Pepper can pretend that she’s just got the noise-cancelling feature turned on, that Tony’s on lockdown in the workshop, and that her assistant Ruby is just out for lunch.

+

“I think I should tell you something.” Words whispered in the darkness of the cozy, cramped bedroom. It doesn’t take much for Ty to hear him.

“What is it?”

“I.” _Get it out, Stark. You have to tell him now otherwise he’ll never know and he’ll keep coming back to it, like he always does._ Tiberius’s soft hitch is enough for him to push on.

“I promised myself, after I got off of that ship. That I’d never be Iron Man again.”

The other man sits up, face alight with something that Tony cannot decipher. “Never be Iron Man again?” Ty’s voice is incredulous, awake with fresh surprise.

Tony pauses. He can feel his own brain split down the centre from saying it out loud. “I don’t think I can ever be. That. Again.” _I guess that’s what happens when you let go of something that you almost died for. Several times, in fact._

At last, Tiberius pulls him up from where Tony lies on his side. Ty’s hands are soft and warm where they hold onto Tony’s forearms, anchoring him in place. Ty kneels, while Tony sits cross-legged, still sleep-soft. “Anthony. I have never known you to step down from a challenge. Maybe Iron Man is just another that you have to conquer.”

A pause. God, he wishes that were true. He wishes that he could be correct when he’d said that Iron Man was a cocoon for him to emerge out of. That it was a problem to be fixed, a stepping stone to something greater.

_Isn't that the mission? Isn't that the "why" we fight, so we can end the fight, so we get to go home?_

“Maybe you’re right.”

Tiberius has always had the upper hand with Tony’s existentialism. “Maybe I’m wrong. It’s up to you to decide that, my dear.”

“My whole mission, as Iron Man, was to save everyone.” Tony’s anger still roars in his stomach, and he forces his eyes to the windowsill. Velvet snow drifts past and lies itself over the residing oak of the forest. “And I failed.”

“You didn’t fail. Contrary to popular belief, the world doesn’t actually rest on your shoulders.” Tiberius’s voice is no nonsense. There’s no room to argue with him tonight. Besides, it’s far too cold for one of them to sleep on the couch. 

“Sure does feel like it sometimes.” _The truth comes out, again. You’ve said enough about your major fuckups._

“You are Iron Man. The suit and you are one.” _Oh, I remember that._ _Senator’s peering eyes and Pepper’s unimpressed gaze and Rhodey’s hand in mine._ Ty’s eyes are as calm as the sea, like they’ve always been. He always seemed to be full of life, now he’s controlled, filtered. _Not necessarily a bad thing._ “You said that once, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” Tony remembers. “Once. I was dying then. I don’t think I told you about it.” Even now, he can still taste coconut in his chest. It’s a strange sensation, but it only comes if he really thinks about it and listens hard for the sound of the RT’s cycles.

“Shit. What from?” Tiberius returns to lying down, and tugs on Tony’s hand as an afterthought.

“Palladium poisoning. From the arc reactor.” Tony’s down beside him now, flopped facing Tiberius. He’s exhausted too, after all that emotional heavy lifting. 

Unusually, Tiberius huffs out a laugh, before letting all out and openly chuckling. Soon after, Tony starts up as well. Ty’s always been contagious for him. _In more ways than one and some worse than the others_ the voice pipes up, and he almost can’t hear it over the sound of his own wheezing.

“Only you would manage to make a device that was meant to keep you alive only for it to start killing you.”

“Kind of my signature move. Didn’t you hear about Ultron?” And holy shit, he cannot BELIEVE he just made that joke. Something that was a reminder of his ill-timed gift to the Avengers and how he never really was a team player reduced to a stupid joke that Tiberius Stone loses his shit over in bed at 1:37 in the morning. 

Their laughter slows to a stop, and a blanket of silence rolls over them. Tiberius and Tony, lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling. Ty almost gives him a heart attack when he pipes up again.

“There’s been something that I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”

Oh fuck. Oh Fuck. Tony is not ready for this talk. Although the past few days have been nothing but domestic bliss and working on saving the universe, Tony is very much not in the right headspace to handle talking about Them. Tony and Tiberius. It was bad enough, sleeping in the same bed. Nostalgia dies hard. But he cannot take this on, not with everything-

“It’s about a project that I’ve been wanting to start.”

_oh_.

Oh. That’s better. That’s a lot less stressful than he was preparing for. Not that he was thinking about Ty thinking about anything else. Nope. Not at all. “I’m open to anything at the moment.”

“It’s a concept called Project Ruby. I’d like your insight on it. I’d even like your input. Possibly even, dare I say, your help.”

“Sounds like a blast. What’s the catch?”

There’s a pregnant pause, and Tiberius is just silent for long enough for Tony to grasp that not all is as it seems here. 

“I’ve been wanting to recreate the serum.”

_Oh._

“The serum. Like That Serum?”

“One and the same.”

Everything’s very candid. As if this hasn’t been one of earth’s greatest mysteries or marvels in years gone by. As if many people haven’t died for that serum. As if _his mother_ hadn’t died because of that serum. It’s very quiet before Tony decides on his reaction.

“That’s not a no.” Tiberius asks, voice already slightly hopeful.

Tony, however, is not quite convinced. “I’m sure I don’t have to reason with you about the many casualties that trying to recreate this certain serum has brought.”

Tiberius remains steadfast, staring towards the ceiling with a strange intensity. “I’m willing to take that risk.” And all is quiet in the world for a moment. “Are you?”

His eyes screw up, an unconscious response to the proposition at hand. The super serum was always a concept that he thought he could beat. If he’d put his mind to it, and he’d had no desire to do so. It’d laid there, untouched in his brain, for many years. And after Siberia, the temptation was somehow both muted and stronger than ever. _One half of you wanted to forget him_ , that fucking voice speaks now _and the other half wanted to show him up. Prove that he’s not so special. That you could make another one. just. like. him._

Tiberius Stone is asking him to recreate the super soldier monster, much like the one that slammed his patriotic shield into his chest and left him frozen in the snow.

“If this doesn’t work,” Tony bargains, the picture of a man attempting to hold himself at arm’s length but failing miserably “if we can’t work out how to fix the world.”

“Then we’ll make the serum.”

+

Natasha Romanoff is like a ghost sometimes, and it’s not uncommon for people to be left wondering if she was ever truly there at all. The others barely notice her when she leaves the compound. She takes Steve’s bike as a practical joke. They could use a little bit of humour at the moment. 

After returning from their uneventful trip from outer space, morale haas been wearing particularly thin between what’s left of the “mighty” Avengers. They’d come back to earth with nothing but the head of a titan and their band of less-than-merry heroes. Steve has been trying to take his mind off of the failure, and has mostly resorted to worrying about Tony. It’s funny, he still looks frantically around the compound’s quarters, as if Tony’s hiding under the couch cushions or behind the bookcases. Natasha knows better, as if Tony’s just going to come back.

One thing that has always stuck in her mind about Steve and Tony is their constant cat and mouse battle. Tony runs fast and runs far from Steve, while Steve attempts to catch him out. They used to like to throw blame around like it was nobody’s business. Apparently, somewhere after dying on several occasions and world obliteration more than once, they didn’t like that game so much anymore.

The bike speeds up as it passes a wreck on the highway, the front passenger door an obstacle that swerves her across both lanes. It’s not like anyone’s driving nowadays. There’s nowhere to go and no-one to see.

Steve loved to argue with anyone in a position of authority, but the Avengers caught him out. He was under the impression that Tony held the power, but the responsibility was all his. Steve had been dubbed their “fearless leader” from almost day one, and Tony hadn’t had a problem with it. Tony was a consultant. Iron Man was the Avenger. 

Being close to Tony when he’s dying is eye-opening. When she’d shadowed him under S.H.I.E.L.D.’s direction, she saw the spiral from miles away. But Ultron was death in slow motion, the spiral turning into an event horizon where Tony was stuck at the edge, being simultaneously pulled in either direction. On the cusp of falling into oblivion. 

Nat accelerates the bike past a lonely kid’s bicycle on the side of the road and almost pretends she doesn’t see it. Shit.

The thing is, she doesn’t expect Steve to understand the inner workings of Tony’s brain. It’s an extremely dark place with more bad than good most of the time. She’d hardly known what to do when he’d been hidden under his desk, asking her to keep a secret.

Living at the Tower together was almost like a fever dream. Some days, she can hardly remember if it was even there, or if it was just an illusion of happy families that they played in for a few years until it got boring.

But as much as Nat denies it, it did happen. They had a pseudo-family. Sure, things weren’t always good, but they were better, better than she’d had before. Tony and Steve used to bicker at the kitchen bench and Bruce used to fall asleep on Thor’s shoulder on the couch and Clint used to throw stray arrows like darts at the houseplants and as much as they all want to admit it didn’t happen, it did. 

She’s driving towards the ping that she’d gotten a week and a half ago. Nat’d decided to let it sit for a few days, and when there was no reply she’d jumped at the chance to figure out where he’d gone. Pepper’s still stressed about him, so’s Steve, but Nat still thinks they ought to give up. He’s not coming back. At least not now.

Natasha ditches her bike at the beginning of the shallow path into the wood. The forest is thick, but she can almost see a tiny light at the end of the driveway. She trudges through the grass, past a sturdy oak, and in the distance

a tiny cottage.


	5. the give up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Girl in red turns her head back to him. “I’m Riri. Riri Williams.”
> 
> “Oh. Nice to meet you, Riri.” Bruce’s brain immediately goes back to adding her to the database, getting her set up, finding a shelter if she needs it, even though he knows that she’s not here for that. “Anything I can do for you today?”
> 
> “Yeah, actually.” She chuckles, and pulls her feet up into sitting cross-legged on her chair. Bruce is still uncomfortably stuck in a half-step from where he was headed back to his desk.
> 
> “I need you to help me find Tony Stark.”

_2-0-1-3_

“Tony?” 

She’s calling through the workshop. Nat knows he’s here somewhere, she can still feel his nervous energy even when she can’t see him. Tony always had the tendency to vibrate with unused electricity, she used to imagine that it was the excess of the arc reactor, jumping out of him in any way it could. Nat knows better now, it’s just pure anxiety.

“Tony. I know you’re in here.” She rubs a hand over one of the workbenches, running into various screws and bolts along the way. Her nails tap against the cool, mirrored table top, and the cursors on the monitors around her dart around and jump. He’s closer to her now, she can almost hear his thoughts.

“I’m gonna find you.” She sing-songs, kneeling down to the floor, clean of dirt but littered with the occasional tool. It really is dark under here. Then she sees it, a tiny, blue glow towards the back where the bench meets the wall. An almost hidden figure curled up in a cat-like position. 

It’s Tony Stark, hiding under his workbench. 

“Oh, Tony.” Nat’s voice is the epitome of pity, and she’s not one to judge, normally. But it’s no secret that Tony’s been doing it rough the past few months. With his surgery, and the ones to follow, and SHIELD breaking their backs with PR and clean up. Tony is the epicentre of the disaster, the target of the attack. 

“Oh, hey Nat.” Tony sort-of mumbles in that way where he’s trying to distract you from what he’s really doing. “I was just. Looking for a. Thing.”

“A thing. Of course.” The main concern is keeping him calm. She’s caught him in a trap, and she will not let him force his way out of it without letting her in. “Like that thing in your chest?”

She can see Tony’s eyes now, he’s bloomed from where he was tucked up, and the light from the workshop is just enough that she can see his eyes, like a beacon for help, in the darkness.

  
That, and the ever-present blue light of the arc reactor. Snug in his chest, just under his shirt. When it was supposed to be in the depths of the Pacific, with the rest of the Malibu house.

Tony swallows, audibly, eyes glittering from the presence of tears. His hair is a mess, long and grown out with a slight curl. He’s tired too, Nat can see it in his forehead. And his energy is exhausted now. She takes comfort in the fact that to him, she is safe, she is trustworthy. It’s new. 

“I thought you’d got it taken out.”

“I got the shrapnel taken out, I never said I got _it_ taken out.” He’s fighting her now, a desperate plea for preservation, to justify himself for lying to the team. _And he is justified_ Nat reasons, _Let him have his secrets. Sometimes I fear it’s all he has._

“It kind of implies it. You don’t particularly need it anymore.”

“Well, consider it a safety net. You know how paranoid I am. It’s just a fail-safe. Just-“ Tony’s struggling, drowning against the sea of emotions and guilt and she’s standing on the shore. Nat reaches out, a lifeboat. Tony finally calms, her hand on his forearm. “Just a protective measure.”

She scoots herself further under the table. She’s done worse things for less, there’s no embarrassment in helping a friend. That’s what he is to her. A friend.

_Huh. Never had one of those before._

“Nat. Natasha.” He holds her arm where it is on his. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

“Don’t tell the team, please. It’ll just be another thing that I’ve lied about. Even Pepper doesn’t know.” Things must be serious if Pepper doesn’t know. After the whole nuke-in-wormhole situation, she thought that Tony would switch to being completely honest with Pepper, a whole renewed sense of purpose after his near-death experience. But he’s spiralling, keeping it close to his chest both literally and figuratively. 

“Tony,” and Nat wants him to trust her, “what did you see?” Maybe it’s a bad idea, talking to him about this when he’s already teetering on the edge of a panic attack. But she has to know. The team has to know.

“Tell me what you saw up there. In the portal.”

Tony’s eyes are suddenly blank. He draws back in every way but physically, a response to show her that he’s not scared. But his mouth parts in a shaky breath, and his hands claw his jeans. 

“I saw things. Things that are waiting.”

Tony is quiet, but his voice still shakes. The whisper soft under the table where they lie.

“They’re waiting to kill us.”

Natasha Romanoff looks into Tony Stark’s eyes and can almost see what he saw. 

_2-0-1-8_

“I think you and I are both thinking the same thing.” 

Tiberius is calm, interrupting Tony’s furious typing on his computer. His hands have been going at it for hours, arms deep in code and typing out every possible combination he could use to get this to work. Tony doesn’t spare him a glance, brain in binge mode, vomiting out every thought onto the screen ahead.

“And what could that possibly be?” He knows it’s a jest, the start of the fight, something that could spiral into a much dirtier situation. But hey, maybe they need a little tension release. God knows sleeping in the same bed isn’t doing either of them any favours. 

“This isn’t going to work, Tony.” He’s standing now. Tiberius likes to do that to make himself look bigger. He can’t try and trick Tony, it doesn’t work. 

“Alright,” Tony mentally suits up, rising to the challenge of whatever argument Tiberius is setting before him “your way. Maybe not this method. But maybe the one after that. Or the one after that. One of these has to-“

“-Tony, it’s been months.”

  
“Yeah, six. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. And this is fucking time travel we’re talking about. It’s not going to just happen. We can’t just will it into existence.”

Tiberius sighs, and it’s cold and exhausted and so unlike him and most of all, disappointed. “It’s been days since you’ve eaten.”

“I told you that it slows me down.” Tony is steadfast. This is a fight he will not lose. He will die on this hill if he must. But he will not compromise on the one chance he has to get Peter back. To bring everyone back. 

“What I’m trying to say is that you’re running in circles. It’s not going to work, and you know it.” Tiberius’s hand comes down on the table hard and fast, but Tony is unchanged. He’s deliberately ignoring it, the code in his eyes growing bigger by the second. If Tiberius is thinking that he can use his abuse to his advantage, he’s barking up the wrong tree. Maybe if he were smarter, he’d pull out Pepper, or Rhodey. Maybe that could guilt him into moving under Tiberius’s demands. But Anthony Stark will not let himself be controlled by his father ever again, vicariously or not. His words are icy, and he manually inflates his ego. _Fake it ’til you make it_.

“I’m Tony Stark. I make technology my bitch every single fucking day, and you think I’m going to be defeated at the **one time** that I need this to work.”

“I don’t just thing you’re going to be defeated.” Tiberius’s voice is raising, volume climbing higher with every word. Tony’s smirking at his screen. _Why are you so determined to get him all riled up?_ “I think everyone who attempts this is going to be defeated. Tony, it’s not tangible!”

“So why did you fucking come, then?!” The room drops. His heart’s in his feet. Because, shit, isn’t that the one thing about this whole situation that didn’t make sense? _Why did he even come, if he was just going to discourage me and say that things weren’t going to work._

_Why are you really here?_

“If you knew that this wasn’t going to work and you had no hope whatsoever, what, pray tell, was the whole purpose of you hauling your ass here? To distract me?” Tony is a raging fire, unable to be controlled. He burns strong and hot and Tiberius almost steps back when Tony launches out of his seat and turns away from his work like a wild animal. 

“I wanted to help you.” His voice is small, a tiny echo in the living room. “I want to help you.”

“But Tony, you’re inaidable.”

The trees rustle outside. The snow batters down agains the window. MORGAN hums to herself quietly. Pieces of information light up like a Christmas tree. Tony can almost pretend it’s 1989 and it’s Christmas and absolutely nothing is wrong. 

“C’mon. Let’s go and get some supplies. We’re running out of things in the fridge.”

Tiberius is trying to make him pliable, to calm him enough to get him where he wants him. But Tony is tired and hasn’t eaten so just once, just this one time, he’ll let it slide.

“Okay.”

+  


Relief efforts are slow. And hard. And surprisingly monotonous. Bruce wasn’t expecting that last part.

It’s probably selfish of him to say he’s sick of finding kids without parents or lost dogs on the street or elderly people emerging from their houses wondering where their spouses are. But it gets boring extremely easily. He’s not built for nurturing, as much as he’d like to believe it. But the Hulk took the wheel, and it’s hard to deny that he’s built for battle. For the war that’s always coming.

Steve’s running a counselling session today. There are still hundreds that turn up, and somehow Bruce has been coerced into shepherding them all into the tiny auditorium where Steve sits on a tiny chair onstage and talks. He never stays for the talks, even he gets sick of Steve’s optimism. 

The clock on the wall is practically unmoving. 4:37. The session doesn’t start until 6, plenty of time for those who still have jobs to make it in time. The afternoon sun creeps through the skylight windows and highlights the dust in the air. Ugh, Bruce can almost feel the hay fever setting in.

He taps his pen against his desk. He was working on files, sorting them from _solved_ to _unsolved_ to _presumed snapped_ , but it’s probably a lost cause now. The sun is setting and it’s particularly cold outside for November. But it’s nice out today, with the sun and all. He’d come early, because there’s really nowhere else that he needs to be, especially alone in the compound with Nat as the only company. 

Except Nat’s run off. She’d taken a motorbike and unceremoniously ditched the compound for wherever the hell she thought was more important than them. He can’t really blame her. Bruce’d leave too, if he didn’t feel guilty about it.

His laptop is slowing down now, his keystrokes not registering as quickly as they did earlier in the day. The cold is seeping in under the door, and the heat from his laptop is a long way from warming his hands. He should probably turn the heater on, despite how not-warm it would make him feel. 

Bruce is tired, too. Not just a regular, ordinary type of tired. But the type he feels deep in his bones. What used to be anxiety for the fate of the world, the rush of endorphins and adrenaline during battle, has fallen thought he floorboards into a deep, dark sense of uncertainty. It’s like there’s nothing left. _Is this how Tony feels, all the time?_

Speaking of Tony, he’s off the radar. Steve was looking for him, but Bruce wouldn’t be surprised if he’s given up. Tony’s a hard man to find on a regular day, no wonder Captain America can’t find a trace of him when he deliberately does not want to be found. 

The front door creaks open, and a gust of freezing snow and steam makes its way into the room. Bruce tucks his sweater closer around him before getting up. The latch quite often comes undone, but it doesn’t particularly bother him. If anything, it gives him an excuse to get up and do something. _Ha. That’s sad. “What did you do today, Bruce?” I sat in a dark room for a few hours and got up and closed the door every now and then._ His steps are loud in the silence, and the door squeaks a protest when he shoves it back into the lock. 

Bruce is turning back around to his desk before he sees a tiny African-American girl, sitting in the back row of seat. He’d almost missed her, except for her dark red hoodie and hair tie in her hair. Her coily hair is remarkably neat for the apocalypse, and her clean jeans and bleach-white sneakers are a stark contrast from the other people showing up here, often in overly-worn shirts and pants and sweaters with pills in the sleeves. The bag by her feet has a tiny light shining through it, and her eyes hold a mysterious energy that he can’t quite place, brown pupils lighting up in the afternoon sun. She looks like a kid, maybe 15, 16, and it’s a well know fact that Bruce is not the most likeable with kids.

“Hey,” the girl in red speaks, “you’re Bruce Banner.” She smiles lightly, and sits back in her chair.

“Yes. That’s right.” Ugh. Bruce is awkward on a good day. Now he’s found a mystery kid. She’s too smart to be lost, he already knows that, but he really can’t do any more questions about the non-existent Avengers today.

“Yeah, I know.” She turns her attention to the stage, where a lonely chair and microphone sit, waiting for Steve to come and sit in the spotlight. “This is Captain America’s therapy session, right?”

“The counselling session, yes.” It’s not uncommon to have people come early, but they usually wait outside. Something about this girl is different. She wants something, and Bruce can feel it. But he wants to help her.

“Nice.” Girl in red turns her head back to him. “I’m Riri. Riri Williams.”

“Oh. Nice to meet you, Riri.” Bruce’s brain immediately goes back to adding her to the database, getting her set up, finding a shelter if she needs it, even though he knows that she’s not here for that. “Anything I can do for you today?”

“Yeah, actually.” She chuckles, and pulls her feet up into sitting cross-legged on her chair. Bruce is still uncomfortably stuck in a half-step from where he was headed back to his desk.

“I need you to help me find Tony Stark.”

+

Walmart has a cursed energy around it. Especially since half the world’s population is gone, y’know?

  
That being said, it has been a while since Tony was in a Walmart. He’s much more accustomed to ordering from local bodegas. There’s not a whole heap of Walmarts in Lower Manhattan. 

Tiberius is much more natural than he is. Tony’s ditched the superhero disguise of a trucker cap and hoodie for this trip. If the Avengers haven’t gotten the clue that Tony wants to be left alone by now, they never will. He feels hopeful that people won’t recognise him, though. He barely looks like himself anymore. 

Tiberius grabs a cart from the row, and they set off down the aisles. Tony throws in the occasional candy and soda, while Tiberius sticks more towards the vegetables and fruit. It’s not until Tiberius puts a pair of cauliflower steaks into the trolley that Tony sees his contributions to their groceries. _How the hell could I ever be a father and eat shit like this?_ He’d almost laugh if people wouldn’t look at him like he’s crazy. 

The aisles are lonely and the linoleum sticks to Tony’s boots uncomfortably. The fridges hum back at him while he considers low-fat yoghurt and the cool glass of the freezer section calms him from where he places his hand against it. Wow. Shopping is an experience.

A little boy, around 6, skids into the cold food section in his tiny sneakers. He bolts to the ice-cream selection, before fixing his eyes directly on Tony. He looks at him with near-psycho intensity. _Relax, Stark. It’s just a kid. He’s not going to kill you. He’s just going to ask you some weird kid questions and run back to his mother and never think about you again._

The kid’s head of brown hair shakes as he floppily walks up to Tony in that over-exaggerated, little kid way. He stares up at Tony with his blue eyes and _wow. He looks like Harley._

Harley, who’d been dusted in Rose Hill. Who Tony found out about after he’d scaled the database searching for the Keener siblings. Tiberius left him alone in their bedroom after Tony had become numb with the news. He didn’t sleep, he didn’t eat. Both of his children, swept from the earth as if they meant nothing at all. 

“You’re Iron Man.”

“Yeah. Once upon a time.”

“Oh. That’s cool.” He seems content with that, and starts to stare into the freezer that Tony’s hand rests on.

“You didn’t save the world this time, though.” _Oh, great. Now even little kids know that I’m a failure_. Tony closes his eyes, losing sight of the strawberry ice cream ahead of him. He remembers to take a breath right before he opens his eyes. 

“Not this time, no.” Tony breathes out. The little boy beside him remains oblivious to his turmoil. _Nice._

“Are you gonna bring everyone back? My little sister was sitting on the couch and she turned into a teeny tiny pile of dust. Are you gonna bring her back?” More kids that will never come home. Like Peter and Harley will never come home. Peter died on a planet in outer space, millions of miles from Earth and he will never come home. Tony can still feel the dust beneath his fingernails and the ground that he’d put his hand through after Peter’d said he was sorry and Tony’d wanted to ask _For what? What did you do? If anything, I brought you here. You were right. It was my fault._

A final breath. Opening his eyes. The little boy’s blue eyes staring back up at him. 

“I’ll do my best.”

+

After Tiberius uploads the full Project RUBY file to MORGAN, Tony sees the grand scale of it.

“Shit. That’s a lot of work.”

“I understand that it’s a big ask, Tony. I want you to understand that you don’t have to do anything.” Tiberius looks up from the table, and gives doe eyes at Tony. “You don’t have to do this.”

“So essentially, the goal is to synthesise a formula that will give us everything that good ole’ Cap has, but keeps you looking ordinary enough to not be seen as a super-soldier.” The DNA strip that Tiberius had is highlighted in a few different areas, obviously highlighting different strands that would come into play were they to edit it.

“Tony, I don’t want to force you into doing this.”

“I mean, we could always reverse the effects of ageing. That’d be cool.” Tony waves his hand to invert the strand. Huh, they could do that. _Wonder how that’d go_. Looking at the stats, it’s completely possible that they could re-engineer a human using just a serum. _Did Steve become different after The Serum? Was he kinder, softer, before?_

“I mean it.

“Imagine being able to change the genetic makeup of someone. They’d be practically untraceable. That’d be cool-“

“Tony!” Tiberius is standing again, and Tony just noticeably finches. It’s an outburst, and Tony is guilty of adding it. 

“If we do this, we have to give up on the snap.” Tony knows what he’s saying. He withdraws, shrinks into himself.

_If you give up on this, you’re giving up on Peter and you’re giving up on Harley. You’re giving up on your children for the man that betrayed you and lied to you and told everyone your secrets. You’re giving up on the kids that you would give your life for, for your college sweetheart that you hated for so many years. The man who caused you so much pain, and you’re willing to sacrifice Peter and Harley for it._

Tiberius is still looking at him expectantly, almost begging him to refuse. To say no. Just so Tiberius could convince him later and he’d end up changing his mind anyway.

I won’t give up on my children. But Tiberius can never find out I’m still working on it. 

“Yes. I understand.” Tony takes a big breath out, to make it believable that he’s made a hard decision. Tiberius visibly brightens, smiling widely and enveloping Tony in an enthusiastic embrace. 

“You are the kindest man in the world, Tony Stark.” Tiberius leans in close to him, and oh fuck he’s going to kiss me but he doesn’t. His lips brush Tony’s ear and Tony tucks himself into his neck. “I know that it was a hard decision for you to make. But it won’t be in vain.”

Tiberius pulls back suddenly, looking deep into his soul and speaking intensely.

“I will make sure that you don’t regret this.”

Tony laughs, but there’s nothing behind it. It’s a farce. He presses back into Tiberius’s shoulder.

_I always end up regretting anything that has to do with you._

_2-0-1-3_

“Nat!” Steve calls across the floor. He’s standing by the kitchen, waiting for the pasta on the stove to boil. “Did you find Stark?”

  
Nat breathes. In and out. She won’t tell them about Tony. He deserves that, at least. She turns from where she was walking towards the elevator, and faces the rest of them, their own faces expectant. 

“Yeah, he’s down in the workshop.” And she hopes they don’t question her further, but when does she ever get what she wants, especially when Steve’s face contorts to one of disbelief.

“Did you find out what was wrong with him?”

Nat promises. Promises herself that she’s not going to give up on Tony. 

“Nothing’s wrong. Tony’s okay. Tony’s fine.” Bruce sends her a look, and she knows that he can tell that she is lying through her teeth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh we getting a little riri up in here?


End file.
